


Sargassum

by oncewewerezombies



Series: Homesmut fills [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Grooming, Haircuts, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, references to Canon typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 18:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4929940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oncewewerezombies/pseuds/oncewewerezombies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Any/any, pale haircuts</p><p>Anybody giving their moirail a haircut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sargassum

"Buoy, your hair is a glubbin' disg-ray-ce."

Pursing her lips, the fuchsia-blooded Empress glared at her sometime-moirail, sometime-kismesis and made a few smacking sounds with them, the sharp popping glubs meant to be scolding in tone or at least provokingly irritating. Mother-glubbing clownfish just ignored her, like she wasn't important and talking to him direct. When she spoke, worlds fucking trembled. They shook in the wake of her attention and she left wrecks behind her. She was the Empress of all she surveyed, and someone had better wake up to that quick before the tsunami of her displeasure crashed down over him and left nothing but jetsam behind. 

"You betta do somefin aboat it. No one ray-spects a clown as it is, they dolphinately ain't gonna f-eel like it when you hook pike you creeled out from under a globular food bush backwards." And looked like that someone who was gonna get something done was gonna be her, as per usual. Meenah Peixes was the one who got shit accomplished. “Hey, basshole. You listening to me, oar what?”

At least they were in private in her luxurious respiteblock on her personal battleship, it wasn’t as though anyone was here watching him disrespect her (except for maybe the Helmsman, but that thought she locked away quick and quiet; the pissblood was a machine to power her beautiful craft and nothing more). They’d crushed another rebellion against her glorious rule, and the Mirthful Church had been…useful. More than useful. She wanted to make the clowns a stronger force in her armada, build them into a real respected power block. Not just tolerated by her sea troll generals and admirals for their skill at crushing lowbloods into dust, and laughed at in private. They were almost there, but it would be easier if the head of the glubbing Church, the Most Highest of Hilarities, the cod damn Grand Highblood himself actually looked like someone to be respected, and not just for pantswetting terror he brought to the table when he was there in the flesh. Instead of him being terrifying all the time, what currently happened when he accompanied her on the Imperial broadcasts, he was just some immense troll looking kind of stupid and wearing his underwear on the outside of his actual pants, what was with _that_? Clowns were weird as all fuck.

It was tempting to stomp her foot like a petulant wiggler while he continued to ignore her, but she was the mothergrubloving Empress. She wasn’t no wriggler, and even with the extreme provocation she was under right now, she wasn’t going to go around throwing tantrums. No point throwing them, when Kurloz was just going to ignore her for the sake of the damn skull he was polishing. Another one for the throne of bones, she bet.

Buoy liked his trophies, she could respect that. Battles won, enemies defeated, right and proper tribute to just how bad ass he was as a troll – even kept up with her, although obviously he wasn’t quite as motherfucking bad ass as she was. Besides, he made her the nicest jewellery out of horn and bone. She wasn’t wearing any right now, but the thought gave her that little pale flutter, right in her collapsing and expanding bladder based aquatic vascular system. Soft. Gentle. Pale as foam and diamond bright.

Which was why she got her slender, skilful hands in his thick and matted mane of hair and fucking _yanked_.

The chair he was sitting in went over backwards and his body came with the pull as he roared with the shock of it; he might have been big but she was a creature of depth and abyss and much stronger than she looked. It wasn’t like she’d hurt him, big sugargrub that he was acting like. A little tug on his dirty gross clownlocks was not even the worst she could do, if she wanted. She’d broken a troll’s horn from their skull once before, and used it to beat them around the head. 

“Buoy, you ain’t listening and I _said that_ \- your hair. Is. A. Mother. Glubbin. Disg- _ray_ -ce.” Bend and haul, like she was pulling nets full of struggling fish, the muscle memory locked into her body while he snarled and kicked, cursed at her, and tried to reach back with his long arms to dislodge her grip. Too bad. Her hands were in deep and he wasn’t going to get her off. When her heels met the lip of her bathing pool, she let herself fall in and dragged him in after her. Sea troll, right? And as much as she hated his sense of style and general hygiene, he wasn’t stupid. He’d have gotten in a breath, he wasn’t about to drown.

She dragged him right down to the bottom and held him there, letting out glubs of air to make herself dense and heavy, nictitating membranes letting her see where he might just be blind. The salt crystals that hadn’t quite dissolved into the water swirled past as he kicked and thrashed, her Grand Highblood, her vicious and genocidal Subjuggulator leader. One large clawed hand grabbed her ankle and twisted, and she held onto his hair even tighter while he tried to pull her off like a hardshell parasite off a musclebeast. Ugh, look at what his hair and greasepaint was doing to her fucking pool. Little clouds of dirt clouded the waters, paint and blood and dye leaving bursts of colour floating, dissolving into the saltwater, as it was dislodged from his grody disgusting hair and clothes. Clowns. Tidally repulsive in their grooming habits, which was why she was going to _fix that mess up shipshape_.

And then he rammed her into the bottom of the pool instead – made her pitchgland throb and that really wasn’t the feeling she was going for. So she let go of his hair and re-inflated her swim sacks, easily rising to the surface of the water as he splashed his way to the side. Meenah watched placidly as the bigger indigoblood hung his arms over the rim of her pool and spat imitation seawater onto the tiles before sculling her way a little closer to him. Her own long mass of hair floated in the water like sargassum, down to her knees now when she was standing in the air, a statement of how little she feared any troll, of how strong she was and how confident in her own self. It didn’t matter that she had such a length of hair, ready for anyone to grab in a fight, because it wouldn’t matter. She’d beat them anyway, and see their blood spilled and horns shattered no matter how hard they fought. They’d not hatched the troll yet who could bring her down.

_There was no Heiress yet._

“Going to listen to me now?” she asked, and snorted as he turned his head to glare at her. Like that was gonna scare her; she wasn’t some lowblood he could push around easy with his chucklevoodoos or implied threats of evisceration and clubbing. Empress here, was that not clear? “Your paint is running, you greasecovered lubber.” With a kick of her legs, she came up against his side and rubbed a thumb over his cheek, getting white and gray all over her palm, heavy and thick. “Look at this. You are a mess.” Spread her fingers as she showed him, like a pupa displaying mudcovered fronds to their lusus, her fangs showing as she grinned.

“Wasn’t my motherfucking idea to wind up in the pool, fishsister,” he growled back at her, and she flapped her earfins at him, lips back to being pursed and glubbing at him before smearing paint across his clothes. It didn’t really make a difference one way or another because they were smeared with blood and grossness already, but he decided to take offence all the same. “Hey! Fucking quit it!” 

A brief wrestling match ensued, like they were kids fooling around. Water went everywhere, and she squealed in a way she would deny ever happened later as he picked her up around her waist, and tossed her to the far side of the pool. Twisting her lithe body around as she reconnected with the water, she put one foot against the hot pink tiles and pushed off so she could hit him with two curled fists right in the stomach. He grunted, folded a little, and she surged back up out of the water to hit him with her open palm in a violent pap. Black wasn’t how she wanted to roll today; best to get him in line with her plan a-fucking-sap.

“Shoosh!” Smacked him again. Two hands this time, hitching her legs around his waist and wriggling up closer, her rumblespheres pressing against his chest. “Gonna mako you hook fine as moonlight, clownfish.” Every time he shaped up to say something, terrible fangs working around obscenities, she papped him. Her fingers were white with paint, and she was totally smearing it up worse every time she touched him but there was just something about the way he looked right now. That mane of hair soaked down into something slick and limp, his scary voodoo paint all runny and dripping, it made her aquatic vascular pump flutter with conciliatory pity. 

“Meenah…” A warning rumble of a growl, and she grinned as sharp as a shark, and papped him harder. Gonna leave bruises at this rate, that was ok, he could just cover them up when he reapplied his paint. She was messing it up, but she wasn’t planning on taking it all off. It was important to his religion, and she sort of mostly respected him even if she thought the Mirthful Messiahs was hokey musclebeastshit. Knew she needed him. They kept each other on an even keel, and she’d cull _anyone_ who suggested that she leave him, forget him for something more fitting with her station as Empress or even just as a sea troll. She’d kill them, stake them out for the sun, hook their guts onto a spindle...wind it out and leave them screaming. She would kill for him. “Leave offa this shit, what’s your motherfucking _problem_ , I should just _gut you_ , you saltlicking wader.”

“You ain’t gonna gut nobody, buoy, just clam down,” she crooned, and watched as his eyelids fluttered, the way the pitch and pale was fighting in his dark purple eyes. Stroking his cheekbones and rubbing his runty little earfins, the fuschiablood worked to get more of the pale in there, get him in hook and line with her program. Wanted him soft right now. No one got to see him like this but her. Just her. Pale with wanting, with needing, this vicious monster who culled on her command and sometimes just because he felt like it. “Water mess you are...” Dirty paletalking him as he subsided underneath her stroking hands and softened voice, until his head tipped back and exposed his throat to her, those long graceful spiralling horns almost scraping the gilded floor tiles. He had some real nice horns. It had been one of the first things she’d noticed about him. “I’m gonna clean you up, buoy, my clownfish, gonna mako you hook reel nice. You need somefin done about your wrackful hair and I’m just the troll to do it.”

“Those fucking puns are terribubble.”

Having him join in made her smile wide and bright, and she rubbed little circles into his cheeks until he groaned, felt his body shake underneath her. “You’re reel cheeky to your Empress sometides, Makara.” One last harsh pap, and she let go of him so she could swim over to get the hairbrush she’d laid in wait on one side of the pool. Maybe she wasn’t always good at carrying out plans when it came to spending paletime with her bad bass motherglubber of a clown, but this time things seemed to be working out just how she wanted them. “Turn around and let me brush your hair. It’s a dam mess and you know it, buoy.”

“My wicked-titty fishsister, you really like to fucking push it like a motherfucker with a cullwish.” 

Still, he turned around for her and presented her with his back and his curling waterfall of hair. With all the pale rising up in her like bladderwrack to the surface of the seas, she pulled a hank of hair softly back and started to brush. The actions dislodged more dried blood into the water as she tackled the job in front of her. The whole pool was going to need to be emptied and cleaned; good thing she had some dirtbloods on this ship to get the shitty work done. Although maybe she’d have some fun with some haughty blue, get them on their hands and knees scrubbing paint and streaks of coloured blood from off her pretty gold and pink tiles. She liked watching those crawling fucks abase themselves. She’d like it better if she thought that about ninety-five percent of them weren’t getting off on it.

Dam, but her pool was a mess now. There’d be no swimming for her until it was cleaned.

Taking it slow was the only way to do it, and she still got snarls and irritated swipes with the tips of his claws when she hit a really bad knot. Swipes got him rapped on the back of the shoulder with the hairbrush, and soon most of his hair was brushed and flowing. Not as nice as hers, of course, which was good for him. She was thinking of making it a culling offence to have better hair than hers. No one could look better than the Empress. And there was that one...irritating...violetblood...not enough hate to think about a fling, not enough anything to be anything other than something to squash.

“This needs a trim and something of a cutter, Kurloz. You’re a wreck.” She fanned the ends of his hair between her fingers, studying the coarse wet strands. Looked like her work wasn’t over yet. She was going to make him look _good_. “And I fin-k you need to take your shirt off for me. Cone on, out of the pool.” She swam away and then levered herself out of the pool, water sheeting off her skin and bodysuit. Ran her hands through her own hair and wrung it out as he got out of the pool, graceful as an aquatic tuskbeast – which was to say, not at all. She snorted, and he swung his head around to glare at her. “Don’t hook at me like that. You know you are.”

“Wreck enough for diamond pity from Her Imperious Condescension. That’s worth something, wickedest of wicked sisters.”

He was speaking as soft to her as she had been to him when she’d gone and brushed his hair, and it hurt her somewhere deep inside. The way he looked at her, the way he’d looked at her ever since they’d met, when he’d started his meteoric rise to the head of his Church. She’d already been Empress, had been for sweeps and he’d been this, this, wriggler. Barely lost his grublegs, that was what it had felt like, and he’d fought and won against the old Grand Highblood and Most Mirthful of Motherfuckers, and come to her court full of the power he had survived to take. And then. Whatever this was, had happened. Like something out of a romcom, some fanciful fucking grubtale. He knew her at her worst and could take it, dish it out and send it back. And he knew her at her softest, at her most vulnerable – and he would always be there. It was a fact, a fact as solid as the moons. And it hurt her in way she couldn’t have defined in words because it wasn’t true.

A purple could never hope to live as long as a troll like her. _She would lose him_.

“You – you’re such a glubbin’ fuckface, Makara!” She pushed him into one of her chairs and he laughed at her, his facepaint all mussed and dripping off his damn cheeks, onto his neck and down his chest. Like milk. If it had been something like milk, she might have licked it off...swung this back around to black, gotten him underneath her and snarling up while his claws raked her hips. The thought made her nook clench, but she wasn’t doing that. Not now. Not tonight. “You’re wright, you are a shipwreck!”

He probably could have done better for a moirail, though she would never admit he might have done better for a kismesis. Not ever. Her black was like jet and pitch, and worth more than anything. But a moirail? What was there to pity in _her_? She was the Empress! She was above pity.

_Never red, no red for her..._

“Only for you, my most sickest Peixes bitch.” One long arm pulled her into his lap and she huffed, their faces close as one enormous hand cradled her head. Held her close, almost made her feel safe as his gaze raked her face, thin black lips quirked in a rueful smile. “Just for you.”

“I could cull you sometides...” She stroked his face, her hands wet with paint once again. Clearing more of it off in the process. This was the most of his bare face that she’d ever seen – there was just whitewash on him now, no skull, no terrifying Drone-like visage. Even in their blackest rages, in their palest piles, she’d never seen his face clean, and she’d never pushed for it. She’d sensed it would be a step too far and never gone for it. Oh, she could have forced him. Maybe. But that was one of the reasons their off again, on again kismesis worked so well. She respected him enough not to do it, and he respected some of her inviolable boundaries just as much. “I’d regnet it soon enough, but I could.”

“I know you fucking could.” Her pusher beat slow, beat tides in rhythm with Gl'bgolyb’s tentacles, like it always had done since she’d ever known herself. They might be separated by lightleagues of space, but she still knew the sound of her lusus and just how it moved in its rhythmic beats. His pumpmuscle beat slow but not as slowly, and his skin was just a little warmer than hers. Curled up in his lap like a grub in the grip of their lusus, she tangled his hair around her fingers and pulled him down into a kiss. “You could cull anyone. You’re the motherfucking Peixes, Her Imperious fucking Condescension.” His breath whispered over the nape of her neck. It smelled like sugar syrup and blood. “Tyrant of All that is Surveyed. Empress of Alternia. Destroyer of worlds. Ruler of the Universe.”

“You don’t need to t-eel me my own glubbin’ titles!”

“Sometimes I think you need,” a breath, a pause in the crescendo, “FUCKING REMINDING!”

Her hands clenched in his hair and the measure between black and pale trembled, her breath chill against his mouth. “Sometimes I pity you so much it aches,” she murmured against his black lips, her own barely moving. “And sometimes I hate you so much I could tear down the stars to watch you burn.”

“Then the feeling’s fucking mutual, my blackest and palest of sisters.” Their fangs only glided against each other as their mouths met in a kiss, neither quite taking the step towards pain. Neither of them quite ready to flip to black just yet. A troll needed the conciliatory quadrants just as much as the others. Helped them stay sane, kept their heads above water. She’d had to make red and black mandatory, she’d had to! There hadn’t been any other choice. Not then, not now. The drones would take the heads of anyone who didn’t contribute their pails from the red and black, but the other two stayed just as important. But she could see her Empire forgetting that, becoming lost in campaigning for fills to their concupiscent quarters but she didn’t know how to stop it. Not without sacrificing what the reason was for sending the drones after the trolls who couldn’t in the first place.

“You motherglubbin’ clown,” she whispered, suddenly close to tears and not quite sure why. His hand stroked her cheek, and she sighed. Calmed. Felt herself find a new footing, and the resentment she felt at being forced to that would bring a spice to their next flip. After all, how dare he console the Empress? “You still need your hair clippered.”

“Then get the two-bladed shearing device, and do it,” he rumbled, and she slipped from his lap to go and get it. It wasn’t as though she was following his orders, it was what she wanted to do in the first place, before she’d been distracted. His shirt hit the ground with a wet slap, and she sat on the table as he hunched his shoulders and lowered his head. The scissors in her hand opened and closed as she used her other to lift the ends of his mane into her lap. Started to cut. She’d leave him most of his mane, it made him look bigger, made him look more frightening – not that he needed it. She wagered that in another sweep of growth, he’d be the biggest and most terrifying troll under her command. He was almost there now.

“You don’t tell me what to do, you prow,” she grumbled, and cut his hair. It left swathes of ebony across her lap as she trimmed back what was dying and left what was healthy. “I’m the Empress, after all.”

“Everyone knows that. You’re on enough fucking broadcasts, you needy bitch.”

His hair came away in chunks, which went from her lap to the floor. Everything in here was going to need a deep clean. Get the clown out of it, otherwise it would fucking stink of paint and chucklevoodoo. “You’re fucking crude, Makara.”

“Yeah. You like it, fishtittiest of sisters.”

She snorted, but she kept grooming him all the same. Snip and cut, comb and trim. It was tempting, in the black way, to make him look the fool. Cut him lopsided, slice one pointed ear in half, something like that. But he’d let her near his skin with cutting, pointed tools and she had enough pale in her for him not to betray that trust. Just.

“I’m a beach, you know.”

“I know.”

“And you’re letting me do this?”

“Yeah, most FUCKING assuredly, I am.”

He would die. He was going to die and she would be alone. No. She’d never let him die, never let him leave her, she needed him. Not that she would ever say so to his face or admit it out loud, but in the deepest most private parts of herself, she could whisper. “Do you hate me?” she murmured into his hair, while the cool blades cut and snipped at her command. Trimming the whale of a mess into something manageable.

“I hate you, most high fucking Empress.”

“Do you pity me?”

“When no one else could, I do.” He leaned back against her and her hand shook a little, the blades of the two-sided cutting tool almost vibrating in her grip at how much trust he was showing her. Something in her wanted to shove the blades in between his vertebrae, leave him a mewling mess, something unable to move, to do anything but writhe. “You need someone to pity you.”

“Arrogant fucking bastard,” she hissed, and pulled at his hair. Hard. Made him grunt but he didn’t lash out. 

“Yeah.”

“Cod dam clown.” She threw the shearing tool so hard, so far from her that it stuck into the tile on one wall. Vibrated there, as she stroked his horns, ran her hands through his hair as he looked up at her. His throat as bare and vulnerable as it would be to anyone who felt true pity, and he did it for her. He’d let her, he’d... “Glubbing...”

“Yeah.”

“Go and tidy up your fuckin’ paint, I’m done with your hair. You cod damn wreck.”

He rumbled a soft growl through his thorax, said nothing and got up. That was the safest thing he could have done, right at that moment. The Empress of all Alternian space stared into nothing, and let her Grand Highblood go from her. Her hands ached for blood, and there was no one in the room she’d want to kill.

No one.


End file.
